Hamas criticises ‘biased’, ‘contradictory’ EU resolution on two-state solution
MEMO | December 29, 2022
The Palestinian resistance movement Hamas issued a statement yesterday criticising the EU over Resolution no. 2949/2022 (RSP), on the prospects for a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine.
In a political memorandum, Hamas said the resolution “contained several inaccuracies and contradictions about the Palestinian issue”, noting that it “is heavily biased against the Palestinians’ inherent and legitimate rights to freedom, return and self-determination.”
Among the issues raised with the resolution, the movement said it has sided with the Israeli occupation’s narrative, while ignoring the Palestinian people’s legitimate right to resistance and self-defence.
“Voting against this right is considered a great sin that Europeans have committed, once again. This vote also reflects the double standards with which the European Union deals with issues of peoples and freedoms around the world.”
“In recent months, we have seen the European position on the crisis in Ukraine, and how the Ukrainian resistance was considered legitimate and supported with money and weapons,” the statement said. The resolution, Hamas insists, has disregarded terrorism practised by the Israeli occupation on a daily basis.
The EU resolution was called out over its double standards in regards to its advocating “customised” democracy for the Palestinians and the issue of the participation of resistance factions in free and fair elections, “despite the fact that most of the candidates for the Israeli Knesset have criminal records and terrorist practices and are labeled on terrorist lists in many countries, including Israel itself.”
Hamas acknowledged the resolution’s demand to end the Israeli blockade, imposed on the people of Gaza since 2006 but concluded that the resolution is further proof of “the European bias towards the Israeli occupation and its racist policies” and the EU’s lack of seriousness in pursuing a just and fair solution to the Palestinian cause.
The movement urged the European Parliament to reconsider Resolution 2949 and to correct its position in order to achieve a just solution for the Palestinian people.
Earlier this month, a senior member of Hamas denounced the EU over its silence concerning the complicity of over 700 European financial institutions in supporting illegal Israeli settlements on Palestinian lands.
Moscow ‘outraged’ by crackdown on Russian media abroad
Foreign Ministry’s spokeswoman Maria Zakharova. © Sputnik
RT | December 29, 2022
France’s push to ban Russian news outlets both on the nation’s territory and in the EU is unacceptable, Moscow’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Thursday. Earlier this month, the nation’s TV regulator Arcom ordered satellite operator Eutelsat to stop broadcasting Channel One Russia, Rossiya 1, and NTV channels.
In a statement, Zakharova said the French watchdog had imposed those restrictions “under apparent pressure from the authorities,” adding that the move preceded relevant sanctions on the EU level. “Moscow is outraged by the new steps taken by Paris aimed at introducing more and more broadcasting bans on Russian media, both on its territory and in the EU as a whole,” she stated.
Such actions suggest that France, given its political clout in the bloc, “is the main lobbyist” supporting the ban on Russian TV channels in Europe, Zakharova claimed. “Such a display of Russophobia, which, unfortunately, has already become mundane, [points to] the aspiration to silence any voices that provide an alternative to the EU propaganda at all cost.”
According to Zakharova, Europeans “are being deprived of the right to free access to information.” She suggested that Paris and Brussels might be “afraid that the audience, after seeing a different point of view and picture of the world that does not correspond to that shown by the mainstream of the Western media, will draw their own conclusions” about global politics and the Ukraine conflict.
The spokeswoman described the crackdown on Russian media as “a flagrant violation” of freedom of speech, which is “discriminatory in nature.” The ban is “another testament that the Western ideal democratization model is in fact no more than a tool for achieving foreign policy goals,” Zakharova claimed.
In recent years, Western countries unleashed a massive campaign against Russian media, which only intensified after Moscow started its military operation against Ukraine. In March, the EU suspended the broadcasting activities of Sputnik and RT, with the number of blacklisted channels only growing as the bloc introduced new sanctions packages.
Russia ready to resume gas supplies to EU – official
RT | December 26, 2022
Moscow is ready to restart supplies of natural gas to the EU via the Yamal-Europe Pipeline, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandr Novak said on Monday. He noted that shipments through the route were halted for political reasons.
According to the official, the EU remains a relevant market for Russia, which is able to resume supplies to a region suffering from a gas shortage.
“For example, the Yamal-Europe Pipeline, which was shut down for political reasons, remains unused,” Novak said.
Gas supplies via the pipeline, which usually flow westward, have been mostly reversed since Poland terminated a supply contract with Russia ahead of its end-2022 expiry date, after rejecting Moscow’s demand for ruble payments. The Polish leg of the route is currently being used to pump stored gas from Germany.
In response to Warsaw’s move, Russian state-run energy giant Gazprom cut off supplies, saying it could no longer send gas via Poland, while Moscow imposed sanctions against the firm that owns the Polish section of the Yamal-Europe pipeline.
Although Russian gas deliveries to the EU via the Nord Stream and Yamal-Europe pipelines have been halted, Russian gas is still being supplied to certain European buyers via a transit line through Ukraine and the TurkStream pipeline through Türkiye.
Despite the persisting problems, Novak says he still sees the EU as a viable market for Russia.
“Today we can confidently say that there is a stable demand for our gas. Therefore, we continue to consider Europe as a potential market for our products. It is clear that a large-scale campaign was launched against us, which ended with acts of sabotage against the Nord Stream pipelines,” he said.
The market for liquefied natural gas (LNG) also remains open, according to Novak, who noted that Russian LNG supplies to the EU are expected to grow to 21 billion cubic meters by the end of the year.
The pharma inquisitors are coming
start the busses and warm up your throwing arms
by el gato malo – bad cattitude – december 23, 2022
long time readers will know of my past predictions on the pfizer phuture of governments turning upon the big pharma co’s that pushed the covid vaccines and declaring fraud in order to use “we wuz lied to!” as the low energy climbdown out of the eye of public rage that will land upon them should anyone ever figure out what a full blown disaster this has been.
the movement appears to be starting in earnest. first a drop, then a trickle, until one day it’s a dam burst and a torrent.
well, here comes the rain:
DeSantis’ Grand Jury Impaneled to Investigate mRNA Vaccine Manufacturers
as astonishing as it may sound after the last 3 years, it is still, in fact, illegal to sell and market products (especially drugs) based on false claims. even in america, phraud is still a phelony. (it also pierces the EUA liability waiver)
The statewide grand jury will be allowed to investigate groups involved in the design, development, clinical testing, marketing, and distribution of vaccines said to prevent COVID-19 infection, symptoms, and transmission. It will be impaneled for one year.
DeSantis’ petition argued that there was widespread belief that the COVID-19 vaccine prevented the disease from spreading, which led to vaccine mandates on citizens, health care workers, and military members.
“It is impossible to imagine that so many influential individuals came to this view on their own. Rather, it is likely that individuals and companies with an incentive to do so created these perceptions for financial gain,” the petition said.
The petition specifically points out Moderna and Pfizer’s claims about preventing the COVID-19 disease with “94.1% efficacy” and “91.3% vaccine efficacy.”
now, many, especially in the hyper-partisan tribalism of the US may try to write this off as a political stunt, and while i suspect it may also be quite politically effective, i doubt that is the primary purpose. there are just too many facts here that don’t add up and this is the path to start getting to the bottom of it.
it’s really not yet clear to me how effective this can or will be. pfizer is a canny company and managed much of their apparent malfeasance in locales like argentina that are notoriously difficult jurisdictions from which to compel the production of documents and witnesses.
on the other hand, the onus lies up the claimant to prove the claims they made are valid and there are entire armories of smoky looking guns lying around in the dodgy looking data.
it will be an interesting wrestling match.
but it is FAR from the only potential bout on the card.
the european commission has been trying to get pfizer CEO albert bourla in to have a few words about the deeply unusual manner in which the EU contracts were signed and EC president ursula von der lyin’ (that was probably a typo or something) sure seems to have lost all her records on the matter.
more dogs are eating more homework as israeli interest in this matters is piqued as well.
and then come the germans who also seem to have some pointy questions of their own.
pfizer and moderna may not be quite running out of friends yet, but they certainly seem to have no shortage of new inquisitors who are starting to take far more than passing interests in the l’affaires covidienne.
this is how the tail gets caught in the ringer and the rest of the beast inexorably follows.
once the questions start in earnest and from all sides, the game can really change…
Russian Ammonia Supplies to Needy Nations Blocked Exclusively by Ukraine, Foreign Ministry Says
By Kirill Kurevlev – Samizdat – 23.12.2022
Exports of Russian food and fertilizers are part of the Black Sea grain deal with Ukraine but are not being carried out. At the same time, the UN has assured that the restrictions would be lifted altogether.
Kiev is blocking supplies of Russian ammonia, Moscow’s Foreign Ministry has said, noting that Ukraine is the only obstacle to the supply of fertilizers to countries in need.
“The resumption of ammonia supplies is blocked only and exclusively by Kiev (…) we are talking about seven million tonnes of raw materials per year, sufficient to produce 25 million tonnes of fertilizer to feed 150 million people,” the ministry said.
According to the ministry, similar examples “clearly show” which side in the conflict “not only does not help ensure global food security, but speculates on the needs of the countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America, including in fertilizers, pursuing neo-colonial or narrowly selfish goals.”
Kiev, however, has claimed that Russia sabotaged the grain deal, despite Ukraine being the country which used the humanitarian corridor for military purposes. The diplomatic body said that it increasingly hears criticism about the insufficiently effective implementation of the agreement, with Kiev blaming Russia, “apparently forgetting that it was Kiev’s actions to use the maritime humanitarian corridor for military purposes that led to the temporary suspension of the initiative from October 29 to November 2 and its virtual failure due to the lack of key security guarantees.”
In this regard, the Foreign Ministry recalled that Russia began to fulfill the terms of the deal in good faith immediately after the signing of the agreements in Istanbul on July 22.
The ministry also recalled that after the expiration of the “Black Sea initiative” for the export of Ukrainian food from the ports of Odessa, Yuzhny and Chernomorsk on November 18, Russia did not object to its extension for another 120 days, until March 18, 2023.
“We made this difficult decision based on our commitment to our obligations to ensure global food security and in strict linkage with the achievement of real returns from the implementation of the Russia-UN Memorandum on the promotion of domestic agricultural exports, which is the second part of the Istanbul “package,” the diplomatic department noted.
The Russian diplomatic body emphasized that there has been no real progress in the implementation of the Russia-UN Memorandum on the normalization of domestic agricultural exports so far.
“Despite the exemptions for food and fertilizer declared by the West, including Europeans as part of the adoption of the 9th package of anti-Russian sanctions, Russian producers and suppliers continue to face blocking bank payments, prohibitive insurance rates and denial of access to ports,” the statement said. “Thus, the matter does not go beyond words and casuistry from Washington, Brussels and London, and in the meantime, countries in need continue to suffer not only from the crisis in the affordability of food and fertilizers but also from their physical shortage.”
It was also stressed that there are still serious distortions in the implementation of the Black Sea Initiative both in the geography of food recipients and in the range of exported products.
“Despite its declared humanitarian nature, cargoes are sent mainly to countries with a high level of income, while poor states receive no more than 3%. At the same time, 70% of the cargoes are fodder corn and feed grains that the needy, they say, can buy food at lower prices,” the ministry said.
Earlier, in an interview with Sputnik, Vladimir Olenchenko, a senior research fellow at the Center for European Studies, Institute of World Economy and International Relations of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said that the West purposefully obstructs fertilizer supplies under the Black Sea grain agreement in an effort to harm Russia’s international standing and compel African nations to purchase grain from Europe and the US.
Given the serious shortage of fertilizer supplies to needy African countries suffering from a food crisis, Moscow has promised to supply fertilizer to the continent for free.
The Black Sea grain deal was reached on July 22 between Russia, Ukraine, Turkey, and the United Nations to create a humanitarian maritime corridor for ships exporting food and fertilizer from Ukrainian Black Sea ports. Vladimir Putin has asserted on numerous occasions that the majority of the ships bringing grain from Ukraine did not arrive in the world’s poorest nations but rather ended up in Europe. Putin has also expressed his worries over the failure of Russian goods to reach international markets as promised by the deal.
Hungary wants European Parliament dissolved
RT | December 22, 2022
The recent corruption scandal in the European Parliament (EP) is a sign that the EU institution should be abolished in its current form, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Wednesday. He added that the EP already had an abysmal reputation.
Orban’s remarks came after Eva Kaili, a Greek politician who served as one of the European Parliament’s vice presidents, was arrested and charged this month with corruption for receiving bribes from Qatar.
“The Hungarians would like for the European Parliament to be dissolved in its current form,” he said at a press conference in Budapest.
Orban argued that the scandal “draws attention to the fact that national parliaments have a stronger control system in place,” adding that legislators from the parliaments of member states should be delegated to the European Parliament, as opposed to being elected separately.
“And they obviously know our political position: the swamp must be drained,” the prime minister said.
Budapest has repeatedly clashed with the European Parliament and other EU institutions over a number of issues, including migration and LGBTQ rights. Brussels, in turn, accused Orban’s conservative government of eroding the rule of law at home.
Hungary, whose economy heavily depends on Russian energy imports, has also criticized the EU sanctions imposed on Moscow in response to the military operation in Ukraine, which was launched in late February. Unlike many of the bloc’s member states, Orban has refused to send weapons to Kiev.
“If it were up to us, there would not be a sanctions policy,” Orban said on Wednesday. “It is not in our interest to permanently divide the European and Russian economies into two, so we are trying to save what can be saved from our economic cooperation with the Russians.”
U.S. Sanctions Are Killing Syrians and Are a Human Rights Violation
By Steven Sahiounie | Strategic Culture Foundation | December 22, 2022
Damascus is now bitterly cold and is soon to be blanketed with snow. About 12 million Syrians are facing a deadly winter without heating fuel, gasoline for transportation, and dark houses each evening without electricity. Aleppo, Homs, and Hama are also extremely cold all winter.
Imagine being ill and having to walk to the doctor or hospital. The ambulances in Syria will now respond only to the most life-threatening calls because they must conserve gasoline, or face running out entirely. Gasoline on the black market costs Syrians an equivalent of 50 U.S. dollars for a tank of 20-liter fuel.
Sanctions against Syria were imposed by the European Union, the United States, Canada, Australia, Switzerland, the Arab League, as well as other countries beginning in 2011. The sanctions were aimed at overthrowing the Syrian government, by depriving it of its resources. U.S.-sponsored ‘regime change’ has failed but the sanctions were never lifted.
For 12 years the U.S. and EU have been imposing economic sanctions on Syria which have deprived the Syrians of their dignity and human rights.
New UN report asks for lifting sanctions on Syria
UN Special Rapporteur on human rights, Alena Douhan, urged sanctions to be lifted against Syria, warning that they were adding to the suffering of the Syrian people since 2011.
“I am struck by the pervasiveness of the human rights and humanitarian impact of the unilateral coercive measures imposed on Syria and the total economic and financial isolation of a country whose people are struggling to rebuild a life with dignity, following the decade-long war,” Douhan said.
After a 12-day visit to Syria, Douhan said the majority of Syria’s population was currently living below the poverty line, with shortages of food, water, electricity, shelter, cooking and heating fuel, transportation, and healthcare. She spoke of the continuing exodus of educated and skilled Syrians in response to the economic hardship of living at home.
Douhan reported that the majority of infrastructure was destroyed or damaged, and the sanctions imposed on oil, gas, electricity, trade, construction, and engineering have diminished the national income, which has prevented economic recovery and reconstruction.
The sanctions prevent payments from being received from banks, and deliveries from foreign manufacturers. Serious shortages in medicine and medical equipment have plagued hospitals and clinics. The lack of a water treatment system in Aleppo caused a severe Cholera outbreak in late summer, and the system cannot be bought, installed, or maintained under the current U.S. sanctions against Syria.
Douhan said, “I urge the immediate lifting of all unilateral sanctions that severely harm human rights and prevent any efforts for early recovery, rebuilding, and reconstruction.”
U.S. sanctions are not effective
In 1998, Richard Haass wrote, ‘Economic Sanctions: Too Much of a Bad Thing’. He cautioned U.S. foreign policymakers that sanctions alone are ineffective when the aims are large, or the time is short. The overthrow of the Syrian government is a massive aim, and the sanctions did not accomplish that goal.
Haass predicted that sanctions could cause economic distress and migration. In the summer of 2015 about half a million Syrians walked through Europe as economic migrants and were taken in primarily by Germany.
There is a moral imperative to stop using sanctions as a foreign policy tool because innocent people are affected, while the sanctions have failed.
The U.S. steals Syrian oil, and will not allow imported oil to arrive
According to the U.S. government, the sanctions on Syria “prohibits new investments in Syria by U.S. persons, prohibits the exportation or sale of services to Syria by U.S. persons, prohibits the importation of petroleum or petroleum products of Syrian origin, and prohibits U.S. persons from involvement in transactions involving Syrian petroleum or petroleum products.”
There is a waiver that can be requested from the Department of Commerce, to circumvent the sanctions; however, it only applies to sending items to the terrorist-occupied area of Idlib. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham was the Al Qaeda affiliate in Syria and is the only terrorist group now holding territory in Syria.
On October 22, the media Energy World reported the U.S. occupation forces had smuggled 92 tankers and trucks of Syrian oil and wheat stolen from northeastern Syria to U.S. bases in Iraq. The theft is ongoing and continuous.
The U.S. has partnered with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) which is a Kurdish militia that has a political wing following the communist ideology begun by the PKK’s Abdullah Ocalan. President Trump ordered the U.S. military to remain to occupy northeastern Syria and he ordered the U.S. soldiers there to steal the Syrian oil so to prevent the Syrian people in the rest of the country from benefiting from the gasoline and electricity produced from the wells.
The Syrian Oil Ministry said in August that the U.S. forces were stealing 80 percent of Syria’s oil production, causing direct and indirect losses of about 107.1 billion to Syria’s oil and gas industry.
Because the Damascus government is deprived of the oil its wells produce, it is forced to depend on costly imported oil, usually from Iran. The U.S. routinely commandeers Iranian tankers, such as the incident recently when the U.S. Navy took a tanker hostage off the coast of Greece on its way to Syria but was eventually released by Greece.
Gasoline shortage
The government has instituted a three-day weekend for schools and civil offices, as well as suspended sports events to save fuel.
Maurice Haddad, Director of the General Company for Internal Transport in Damascus, told the al-Watan newspaper that the government has set stricter diesel quotas, leading to fewer daily bus services.
Athar-Press news website reported that several bakeries in Damascus have had to shut down because of the lack of fuel.
Fuel is needed to generate electricity in Syria, and the lack of domestic or imported fuel means most homes in Syria have about one hour of electricity at several intervals each day, and the amount is diminishing daily.
Sanction exemptions for Idlib and the Kurds only
The only two areas in Syria which are not under the Damascus administration are Idlib in the northwest and the U.S.-sponsored Kurdish region in the northeast. The U.S. sanctions are exempt from sending items to those two places only. But, those two places represent a small number of Syrians in comparison to the civilians across the country, and the main cities of Damascus, Aleppo, Homs, Hama, and Latakia. The U.S. makes sure the people who are against the Syrian government continue to be rewarded with supplies and reconstruction, while the millions of peaceful civilians are kept in a constant state of suffering and deprivation.
Deutsche Bank: “A Certain Degree of Eco-Dictatorship Will Be Necessary”
BY TOBY YOUNG | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | DECEMBER 20, 2022
Izabella Kaminska, formerly the Editor of the FT’s Alphaville and now the Editor of the Blind Spot, has flagged up an alarming passage in a document published in January 2021 by Deutsche Bank Research entitled ‘What we must do to Rebuild’. Eric Heyman has written the section about the tough choices the EU must face it if’s to meet its goal of achieving ‘climate neutrality’ by 2050 – Net Zero, in other words – and says the following:
The impact of the current climate policy on people’s everyday lives is still quite abstract and acceptable for many households. Climate policy comes in the form of higher taxes and fees on energy, which make heating and mobility more expensive. Some countries have set minimum energy efficiency standards for buildings or similar rules in other areas. However, climate policy does not determine our lives. We take key consumption decisions, for example whether we travel at all, how much we travel and which means of transport we use, whether we live in a large house or a small apartment and how we heat our homes, how many electronic devices we have and how intensely we use them or how much meat and exotic fruit we eat. These decisions tend to be made on the basis of our income, not on climate considerations.
If we really want to achieve climate neutrality, we need to change our behaviour in all these areas of life. This is simply because there are
no adequate cost-effective technologies yet to allow us to maintain our living standards in a carbon-neutral way. That means that carbon prices will have to rise considerably in order to nudge people to change their behaviour. Another (or perhaps supplementary) option is to tighten regulatory law considerably. I know that “eco-dictatorship” is a nasty word. But we may have to ask ourselves the question whether and to what extent we may be willing to accept some kind of eco-dictatorship (in the form of regulatory law) in order to move towards climate neutrality.
When he says we have to “ask ourselves… whether and to what extent we may be willing to accept some kind of eco-dictatorship” I don’t think he has a Net Zero referendum in mind. Rather, by ‘ourselves’ he means the EU’s ruling class. It has to ask itself whether it’s willing to pass laws forcing the EU’s population to modify its behaviour to meet the 2050 ‘climate neutrality’ target, regardless of whether it has a democratic mandate to do so or not.
I suppose we should be grateful that at least Heyman hasn’t tried to sugar coat this. It should be clear what “eco-dictatorship” means, even to those most reluctant to accept that Net Zero zealots have little love for democracy.
Stop Press: Izabella Kaminska has interviewed the neo-Malthusian Turkish-American economist Nourel Roubini for the Blind Spot podcast. In his book Megathreats: The Ten Trends that Imperil Our Future, and How to Survive Them he argues that individual freedoms will have to be sacrificed if we’re to contain another pandemic or avoid a climate catastrophe.
Hungarian Parliament Speaker: West’s Push to Turn Ukraine Into Anti-Russian Bridgehead is a ‘Strategic Mistake’
Samizdat – 21.12.2022
Budapest has stood alone among NATO’s Eastern European flank in rejecting the transfer of weapons to Ukraine via its territory. Prime Minister Viktor Orban has essentially labeled the Ukrainian conflict a Russia-US proxy war, citing the need for peace talks between Russia and the US, rather than Moscow and Kiev, for the conflict to stop.
Hungarian Parliament speaker Laszlo Kover has lashed out against Western governments’ “hypocritical” behavior in Ukraine, and warned that the West’s attempts to pry Kiev out of Russia’s orbit and turn it into an armed base against Russia has proven to be a “strategic mistake.”
“I think the Western world made a strategic mistake when it tried to not only take Ukraine out of Moscow’s sphere of interest, but also turn it into a large military base against Russia,” Kover said in a broad ranging interview with a Hungarian radio station on Tuesday.
Asked whether he sees any prospects for a diplomatic resolution to the crisis, Kover said that if he “wanted to be cynical,” he would point out that Western countries have already found a workaround, by “proclaiming the protection of European values and international law and accusing Russia of all kinds of crimes, with basis or without basis. In the meantime, they have tried to stock up on Russian oil and gas, so their trade volume with Russia actually jumped radically after sanctions were announced.”
The politician, who is a member of Prime Minister Orban’s Fidesz party, accused Hungary’s European allies of engaging in a “hypocritical show” in Ukraine and behaving in a “terribly hypocritical and irrational” way, destroying their own economies, even as the United States “has embarked on the path of an openly protectionist economic policy,” by setting up trade barriers to European automobiles, for example, making American cars 25-30 percent cheaper than their European-made counterparts.
“This is clearly offensive. It violates all kinds of free trade rules and agreements, and of course violates the legitimate interests of European car manufacturers. Now, compared to this [the crisis with Russia, ed.] the leaders of the EU member states and the European Council are watching events with drooling glee, and we haven’t seen even a harsh outburst or verbal reaction, lest they take some kind of countermeasure, some kind of defensive step,” Kover complained.
The parliament speaker suggested that from the “first moment” of the Russia-West proxy conflict in Ukraine, the goal was to try to “destroy Russia economically, politically, in every sense” and to separate Moscow from the European Union, “to create a new Iron Curtain,” no matter the cost to Europe.
“This means in practice that the space of continuous economic and political cooperation based on mutual, fair consideration of interests, which could have been created in a unified Eurasia stretching to Portugal to say, Southeast Asia, seems to be falling apart at this moment, and I think that the damage caused by this conflict will stay with us for the rest of our lives,” Kover said.
Kover stressed that Hungary’s position has been and remains to defend its elementary economic interests by withdrawing from some EU-level sanctions against Russia “to prevent decisions that harm us more than Russia.” The official added that “the whole sanctions regime has hurt Europe much more than Russia, and I think we should fight here in Central Europe so that this scenario, where we become the eastern periphery of a North Atlantic empire, does not come true.”
Kover reiterated that measures were necessary “to try to end this armed conflict as quickly as possible,” even if it takes “years before this can take the form of some kind of peace treaty.” In the meantime, “we should try to create a new Central European or pan-European peace system in which each [country’s] security needs are taken into account by the other side,” the official said.
As for NATO’s role in the Ukraine crisis, Kover urged the Western alliance to stick to preparing to defend the sovereignty and security of alliance members, and not allow the bloc to drift into a hot war with Russia. “It’s very close to it anyway, because while no NATO members are involved in the war de jure… when a country supplies weapons to another that is at war or when a country or political community tries to destabilize the economic life of another country via various sanctions, blockades or the freezing of assets, this can be considered a kind of warfare.”
Relations between Hungary and Ukraine have been strained since the 2014 Euromaidan coup, which brought nationalist forces to power in Kiev which gradually moved to deprive the 150,000-strong community of ethnic Hungarian Ukrainians living in western Ukraine of their rights, including the right to receive an education in their native tongue.
Amid the escalation of the crisis, Hungarian and Ukrainian officials have gotten into a series of vicious verbal spats, with Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry asking Kover to produce a note from a psychiatrist on his mental state after the speaker suggested that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was suffering from a “mental problem.”
Ukraine is not our ally – Croatian president
RT | December 20, 2022
Croatian President Zoran Milanovic said on Tuesday that Ukraine “is not an ally” of his country and warned against bringing “war” to the Balkans.
“Ukraine is not an ally. It’s being forcibly made into one. It was cynically granted the status of an EU candidate. That’s what the EU is today: squalor, zero.”
Talking to reporters, he also hit out against Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic for his proposal to have Ukrainian troops trained in Croatia. Milanovic said such a move would “bring war” to the country.
“You keep pushing moral blackmail,” he addressed Plenkovic, “but you have no morals yourself. Go to Ukraine and fight.”
Speaking of the Croatian military’s preparedness to fight, Milanovic noted it had a shortage of anti-tank rockets, for example. “We have Americans, who will defend us the way they defend the Ukrainians. Great!” he said sarcastically.
The president’s comments come after Croatian lawmakers failed to adopt a motion for the country to join an EU program intended to train some 15,000 Ukrainian military personnel to fight against Russia. Last week, only 97 Croatian MPs out of 151 voted for the proposal, just short of the two-thirds of lawmakers it needed to pass.
Ahead of the vote, Milanovic, who is the commander-in-chief of the Croatian armed forces, warned that joining the program could make Zagreb a target for Russia. Plenkovic, whose cabinet backed the mission, in turn accused the president of harboring “pro-Russian views.”
Former Austrian vice-chancellor launches peace platform
Free West Media | December 20, 2022
The launch of a remarkable peace initiative has been reported from Austria. The initiator of the “Platform for Peace and Neutrality” is the former FPÖ boss Heinz-Christian Strache. On Monday, a highly acclaimed panel discussion took place in Vienna.
Guests included FPÖ veteran Andreas Mölzer, the former Liberal National Councilor Peter Fichtenbauer, AfD member of parliament Christina Baum, former Baden-Württemberg AfD member of parliament Heinrich Fiechtner and non-aligned Efgani Dönmez.
The motive for the event and the founding of his platform was that there were “no loud and audible peace initiatives,” explained Strache, who moderated the discussion. Russia is not being invited to the negotiating table, he added, blaming Western nations for not taking the initiative.
Former MEP Mölzer stated: “Nothing positive is being brought to the table from the European side at the moment.”
The panellists also agreed that Russia was being portrayed too negatively in the Western media. However, the causes of the war are much more complex, stated Mölzer. He added: “Not everyone who is critical [of the war], is a Putin supporter.”
For the AfD member of parliament Christina Baum, who had already spoken out in the Bundestag against Sweden and Finland joining NATO, Russia or Kremlin chief Putin was not responsible for the war in Ukraine. “The aggressor is the one who forces his opponent to take up arms,” she quoted Frederick the Great as saying. Even before the war, she thought, “I hope Putin won’t lose his nerve,” because he was “permanently provoked”.
The former Greens and ÖVP member Dönmez, a representative from the camp of the mainstream parties also participated in the round of talks.
Dönmez pleaded for restraint and understanding towards Russia: “We are presented with a narrative, a story that we have to accept without thinking. As a mediator, I say: I would also like to understand Mr. Putin.” This also applies in the case of the Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky and the Turkish President Erdogan. Instead, the West is deliberately escalating tensions.
The war is a proxy war of the great powers, said Dönmez. The EU only acts as a “vassal state” of the USA. Putin did them a favor with the war: the EU has now moved closer to the USA and has distanced itself from Russia, while the EU should actually pursue an independent peace policy, explained Dönmez.
Asked by moderator Strache whether Ukraine was the epitome of “Western values”, ex-AfD member of parliament Heinrich Fiechtner replied: “Unfortunately yes, it is – in all its corrupt amalgamation.”
The roundtable convened in Vienna also agreed that Austria’s neutrality should be upheld, which has been increasingly undermined since the beginning of the war. “I think joining NATO is the last thing the Austrians want,” Strache said. AfD MP Baum agreed and expressed the opinion that “it is very important that Austria remains neutral”. She wished the same for Germany, but chances are slim that Atlanticist politicians will abandon their course.
New enemies
While a year ago the unvaccinated and those who refused to wear masks were marginalized in society, today friends of Russia or critics of the war are the new enemy to be denunciated and discriminated against.
The deputy leader of the Union parliamentary group in the Bundestag Andrea Lindholz (CSU) has demanded a “reporting office” and a “nationwide situation report” on alleged Russian disinformation.
“The danger of Russian propaganda and disinformation in Germany must not be underestimated,” Lindholz is quoted as saying. “Especially now that everything is getting more expensive, there is a risk that people will become more receptive to pro-Russian fake news,” the CSU politician told the Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland.
Of course, it is particularly insidious when more and more alleged “fake news” turn out to be true as is currently being experienced with the Corona pandemic.
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The great ADHD swindle
By Daniel Ken | TCW Defending Freedom | May 20, 2023
Over more than two decades in the classroom I’ve taught thousands of children and teenagers: some were lovely and lots were hard-working. On the other hand, quite a number were disruptive and argumentative, and a number were violently opposed to learning. But I don’t think I’ve taught more than a handful of kids who could be properly described as having the symptoms of ADHD. And that handful could just as easily have had something else wrong with them. Because here’s the thing: despite the fact that the best part of a million children are medicated for the condition, ADHD doesn’t exist.
There’s no definitive medical test for it, experts can’t agree on what it actually means, and most of the symptoms disappear if the child in question has lots of exercise, good diet and, crucially, a set of clear behavioural boundaries, preferably set early in childhood and, for the boys at least, enforced by a stable adult male living at home. … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- IRAN WAR “ON PAUSE” – w/ Prof. Glenn Diesen
- Zelensky threatens to attack Belarus
- UK to send Ukraine 150,000 drones
- ‘Biased censorship’: Iran deputy FM slams X for stripping him of blue tick
- Hezbollah lawmaker says Israel has 60 days to withdraw from Lebanon
- Iran rules out IAEA inspections of war-damaged nuclear sites
- Israeli regime’s only interest is ‘permanent war,’ Iran’s FM Araghchi says
- Syria, Lebanon, and the limits of power
- How Multipolarity Forced Trump to Capitulate… For Now
- Switzerland confirms US-Iran talks planned for Friday are cancelled
- If Americans Knew
- 15 articles a day: The extent of the Israeli army’s media interference
- Greek Orthodox Patriarchate denounces Israeli seizure of church land in Jerusalem
- How Hillel International uses antisemitism training and ‘campus climate’ concerns to attack Palestine solidarity
- Old Iraq war architects rise up against Trump’s Iran deal
- Unmasking Axios, its Israeli ties and agenda
- Israel Is Bleeding Support in the U.S. – and Pouring Tens of Millions Into Trying to Change That
- Israeli army included on UN blacklist for 3rd year over ‘grave violations’ against children
- Trita Parsi on the Iran deal, Israel, and how Iran has been a ‘cash cow’ for AIPAC
- JD Vance speaks truth to Israel: “You can’t just kill your way out of every problem” – Daily Update
- What Ceasefire? Israel Has Now Killed Over 1,000 Palestinians in Gaza Since October
- No Tricks Zone
- New Study: Chile’s Relative Sea Level Was 3.2 Meters Higher Than Today During The Mid-Holocene
- Beyond The Pitch: Why FIFA’s World Cup Is One Of Humanity’s Best Investments
- Climate Alarmists Now Using Natural Phenomena To Support Their Claims
- New Study: Significant CO2 Fluxes From Non-Volcanic Sources Are Largely Neglected In Carbon Budgets
- Women Climate Scientists Being Harassed, Insulted By Skeptics, Claims Berkeley Earth Researcher
- Germany’s Longterm Spring Climate Data Show “No Climate Trend”
- New Study: Solar Photovoltaic, Wind Power Fail To Meet Annual Energy Demands 62% Of The Time
- Germany’s Die Welt: “Too Much Is Too Much” … Green Energies Are Cannabalizing Each Other!
- Germany’s Ecological Holocaust… Once Fairy Tale Forests Getting Cleared For Wind Turbines
- A Grand Solar Minimum Has Arrived…Global Cooling Of At Least 1°C Is Expected By The 2030s, 2040s
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